From cut-price books to Airfyers, Amazon receives a staggering 12.87 million orders every single day.

Of course, not every purchase is a successful one — so what happens to those ill-fitting clothes, gadgets you don’t actually need, and far-too-big furniture when you send them back?

Well, they could end up at Trade Outlet, a little-known UK chain, which gives shoppers the chance to buy Amazon overstock and returns at massively discounted prices.

With seven locations across England and Wales, receiving 20,000 new items a day, discounts can reach a whopping 85% off.

I love a good bargain. From far-away charity shop trips, to early morning January sales, I’ve been known to go to ridiculous lengths for a great deal.

With the sun shining, I headed to Trade Outlet’s largest location, just outside Chester, ready to unleash my inner David Dickinson (minus the tan) and score a steal of a deal.

Preparing for your visit

Before you hire a van and drain your bank account, there are a few details to bear in mind.

Trade Outlet is a predominantly business-to-business (B2B) seller. This means that, similar to Costco, you’ll need to register for an account before you shop, which can be done online or in person. Unlike Costco though, no proof of trading is required, and anyone can shop here.

Although email receipts are provided, there is a no returns policy. In fact, the website states: ‘As we operate outside of the typical consumer legislation, all stock is sold as-is aside from exceptional circumstances’.

All prices at Trade Outlet are listed on products excluding VAT — so remember that all of your items will be more expensive at the till.

My first impressions of Trade Outlet

I arrived bright and early, when the store opened at 10am. Despite proudly being a new account holder, this wasn’t checked by staff — I simply strolled in and started shopping.

As you walk through the door, the sheer size of the place hits you square in the face.

It resembles something akin to a really big charity shop, combined with a jumble sale, and the downstairs area of an IKEA — there are giant shelves stocked with all manner of mysterious-looking parcels and packages.

The sections are roughly organised into categories like ‘Electronics’, ‘Books’, ‘Christmas’, ‘Arts and Crafts’, and more, and my brain starts to hurt as it quickly becomes evident that this is going to take some effort.

The only way to really seek out potential bargains is to get in the thick of it, riffling among the shelves and sifting through the stock.

While I had worried about being barged out of the way by FOMO-mad shoppers, this wasn’t the case though — the store is so big that it easily accommodates large crowds.

Heading first to the electronics aisle, I immediately spy a whole load of wireless earbuds, all with an RRP of around £20, and being sold off forfraction of the cost, at just £2.

I also spot a paper shredder with an RRP of £74.99 on sale for just over £10, various phone cases between £1 and £2, and even a foot massager reduced from £116.20 to just £19.22. One fancy looking iPad case had been slashed from £97.90 to £23.60.

I’ll be honest, in some of the sections, it was clear to see why these products hadn’t been snapped up for their original prices online: there was an inexplicable abundance of photo frames, curtain poles and random computer parts.

There were also the kinds of purchases that I imagined someone had drunk-ordered, only to return when they sobered up — items like said foot massager and a child’s keyboard with a £50+ RRP.

Still, it was the furniture section that impressed me the most. I spotted a luxury leather reclining three-seater sofa (in surprisingly good nick) for £149.51— a £550 saving on its original RRP — and a velvet sofa for £47.40, down from £223.99.

It struck me that Trade Outlet could be a haven for budding interior designers, in the same way that Facebook Marketplace is, transforming these buys into something more stylish.

Perhaps the best bargain I found was also in this section: an L-shaped desk with a price tag of just £7.81, down from £78.08 RRP.

After leaving the furniture, I stepped into another section with much potential: clothing.

I walked between never ending racks of coats, jumpers, shirts, dresses, shoes and accessories.

Several smart-casual blazers by Paul Jones caught my eye, priced at around a fiver (usually at least £60 or more), as well as a long trench coat that was supposed to be £62.17 for £10.36.

This could also be a hidden-gem for parents, as there was a huge selection of books and puzzles for little ones.

Everything I bought at Trade Outlet

Quite a lot, actually. Here’s my full shopping list:

• Wireless headphones: £2
• MacBook case: £2.67 (RRP £15.98)
• Microphone covers: 80p
• Silicone baby’s dummy case: £1.40.
• Blue corduroy sports jacket: £4.17
• Blue cufflinks with a matching bowtie and pocket square: 83p
• Patterned slim tie: £1.60.

• Green suede handbag: £1.17
• Brown button-down corduroy over shirt: £4.67
• Keychain phone charger: £1.69
• Car air fresheners: £1.17)
• Shoe laces: 45p
• Phone case: £1.83
• Pet sling: £3.17 (With apologies to my partner’s dog, Rowdy — I did try and talk her out of it.)
• Two Trade Outlet ‘mystery boxes’: £20 each

Total bill: £60 (including VAT)

What was in the Trade Outlet ‘Mystery Boxes’?

Speaking to one of the store staff, I’m told it’s not unheard of for shoppers to find brand-new phones, projectors, and other high-end items in their mystery boxes.

While this made everything very exciting, it’s fair to say that we had no such luck.

Our two mystery boxes contained around 40 items, ranging from vaguely useful to utterly ridiculous.

Some highlights included a set of (quite nice) champagne glasses, cups, cactus seeds, guitar picks, touchscreen gloves, odd electronic adapters, and a 13-piece set of garden sprinkler attachments. Lovely.

However, some of the more bizarre picks included printer cartridges for a Lexmark, a Scotland-themed drawstring bag, three sets of decorations for a children’s birthday party, self-adhesive metal tape, some drill bits, two matching sailor costumes (yes, really), and… a pot of blue slime.

There were also several items that, to my mind, were completely unidentifiable in their purpose in the absence of clear labelling.

And, for the record, I also now own enough phone cases to start up a shop in a motorway service station.

My verdict on Trade Outlet

Will any of the items I purchased today change my life? No, probably not. Am I glad I went and checked out Trade Outlet? Absolutely.

The key to navigating this kind of shopping is a mixture of perseverance, timing, and good luck.

You could quite literally spend hours looking through all the various nooks and crannies of place, but I’m not sure anyone has that kind of time.

Although most of the items I found were unbranded (or brands I didn’t recognised), the website claims that spotting high-end names isn’t not uncommon — maybe I’ll have better luck next time?

Plus, with so many items being added to the shelves daily, your potential for bargains changes wildly, and every day is essentially a new roll of the dice.

I, for one, will definitely be stopping by from time to time.

That being said, I won’t opt for another mystery box until I figure out what on earth to do with the contents of the last two.

Do you have a story to share?

Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.

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Staring at myself in the mirror, I could hardly believe what my eyes were seeing. 

Half of my short, black head of hair had been shaved off and in its place was a large, stitched up wound that stretched right across my head. 

Until that point it had felt like any other morning, but it was only now that I realised where I was: The John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.  

As I slowly took in my surroundings I felt confused, shocked and scared. What had happened? Why was I here?

By the time I made it back to my bed, it was surrounded by people I didn’t recognise – it turns out they were members of my immediate family. And then I learned the truth… 

Aged just 15 I suffered a major brain trauma and was in a coma for several days. And that would change my life, forever. 

While I have no recollection of any injury, collapsing, or the subsequent treatment, over the years and with the help of different friends and family accounts, I have slowly been able to piece together what happened.   

It all happened back in December 2005. I’d been out shopping with my mum and aunt when suddenly I collapsed out of nowhere.

At the time of my collapse, I was alone as I’d gone into a different shop to my family. As I’d been away for some time, they came to look for me and the first thing they saw as they came around the corner, were my legs on the floor.  

No one knew what had happened in the moments before that because I had fallen, in what security called a ‘CCTV blind spot’. All they could do was call for help. My poor mum just sat there waiting with me for help to come.  

From there, I was immediately taken to hospital, where I’m told a slew of tests showed I had multiple clots on the brain as well as a fractured skull. However, no one was able to determine whether I’d been born with the former, or whether I had sustained them from all the contact sports I did. 

After all, up until then, I’d been your typical, healthy teenage boy. I even had a glittering football career ahead of me.

But now that I’d woken up from the coma, and discovered the scar on my scalp from where surgeons had removed the blood clots, my healthcare team advised that the best course of action was for me to stop playing football. 

Since they’d been unable to determine what had caused my brain injury, they wanted to lessen the chance of me knocking my head – they were uncertain whether I would be as lucky to survive another injury.

So just like that, my hopes for a football career ended. I was devastated – football had been my life. 

In the weeks and months that followed I was then forced not only to come to terms with that, but also that I’d been left with huge memory gaps. To this day, I can barely remember much of that year when the injury happened.  

I was left with self-loathing, depression and hopelessness. 

Sadly, this eventually led to suicidal ideation. The side effects of the injury left me in daily pain and it was overwhelming. I started to think that things would be a lot easier if I was no longer around. 

I struggled with feeling like this right up until 2018, when I finally sought mental health therapy at age 28 – I was at breaking point.

I had experienced a physical injury, but I hadn’t realised just how much the trauma of the incident and the aftermath had impacted my mental health. Not one healthcare professional had suggested I seek support and back then – society just wasn’t as open about mental illness as we are now.

With help from my therapist I came to realise that my life was not over, I just had to learn to accept the new version of it. 

Slowly and surely, I got through it. The people in my life and my therapist reminded me that I had survived – I was still here and life is for living.  

And sure, I might not be able to play anymore, but I could still immerse myself in the footballing world by watching or coaching.   

Though I had started to feel happy again, I knew deep down I was still lacking purpose. 

That’s when a friend suggested I apply for a job at the mental health charity St Andrew’s Healthcare.

The organisation is dedicated to inspiring hope for individuals with complex mental health needs and at that time it was looking for a peer support worker to work with patients who have experienced a serious brain injury. 

Having spent most of my adolescence and early adulthood recovering from my own brain injury, I questioned whether I could do this role. But after deciding I had nothing to lose, I eventually went for it and got the job.

The work I do is very rewarding. I spend two days a week visiting a ward with patients who have also experienced brain injuries.

It’s my job to support and coach them to achieve their full potential. We sit and chat about their concerns and worries and I try to be a beacon of hope to them. 

I am proof that after a head and brain injury, it is possible to still have a life and crack on with the things you enjoy, with some alterations. The patients have told me that seeing me up and about, working, dating and enjoying life gives them hope for their future.  

It was like this job was made for me. I feel like I’m making a real difference as I can truly relate; I wish there had been someone like me who I could have talked to. 

One patient I was working with had very long hair, and he confided in me that he wanted to get it cut, but he was worried his scar would be too visible.

I told him that he should be proud of his scar as it represents how he beat something that could have killed him. I told him that I wear my scar with pride, and that filled him with the confidence to get his hair cut. It was lovely to see him take pride in his appearance and no longer worry about what other people thought.

The patients also inspire me. They are all fighters, doing what they need to do for a better future. It makes me want to do the same. 

Now, I’ve learnt to accept the daily pain I experience and the headaches, which can vary in their level of severity. I still have regular scans and my medications continue to be an evolving process as my healthcare team tries out different prescriptions every few months to see which ones help the most. 

My injury is stable and I’ve made peace with the fact that if it ever got worse, I know I’ve lived a life I’m fulfilled with.  

I’m no longer ashamed of my scars. Instead they serve as a reminder that I survived, that I’m still here and able to live a happy, positive and meaningful life – with or without football.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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